Early election results: ANC support plummets, Western Cape stays DA
The story as votes continue to be counted around the country is that the ruling ANC tally has dropped compared to the 2019 results.
The big early story as votes continue to be counted around the country is that the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) support appears to have dropped considerably compared to its 2019 results.
In early counting in KwaZulu-Natal, Jacob Zuma’s MK party has eaten into the ANC’s dominance and holds the lead at the time of publishing.
In 2019, the ANC recorded 54.52% of the total vote in KwaZulu-Natal, but was down at 20.08% in early counting this year with the MK party at 42.18%.
In the Western Cape, the early vote count suggests the Democratic Alliance (DA) will retain power.
Meanwhile, as at 09:00 in terms of the overall picture, only 2 648 of 23 293 Voting Districts have completed counting (11.37%) with a total of 980 743 votes counted.
The ANC leads the way with 414 292 votes (42.83%), followed by the DA (247 280 votes for 25.56%) with the EFF in third (80 129 votes at 8.28%).
As a reminder, in the 2019 elections, the ANC finished with 57.5% of the total vote.
NOTE: These are early numbers and are NOT final. However, they do give a good indication of what the final count may reflect.